These next 3 chapters need to be divided into 2 parts. They are 5k+,6k+,7k+ words!
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The toxic jungle breathed around them like a living beast. Every leaf glistened with venom; every droplet that fell from the canopy hissed against metal. The air hung heavy and hot, saturated with the reek of resin and decay. Beneath that emerald canopy, Artorius's host advanced five hundred strong, banners of black dragging through the fetid mist like the tongues of serpents.
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It had been days since they crossed the borders of Zalroth's domain, and yet… nothing. No scouts found any signs of the enemy. No ambushes stirred the reeds. No traps lead in their path. Only silence.
Even the beasts that dwelt in the jungle seemed to have fled. The frogs' croaks, the buzz of venomous insects, the scream of canopy-hunters, gone. The further they advanced, the more the silence pressed against them like a weight.
Artorius rode ahead beneath a canopy of phosphorescent vines, his crystal harness gleaming faintly where the mist touched the crystal veins along his chest. Ouroboros coiled lazily around his shoulders, eyes flicking through the trees with amusement. "You notice how even the jungle holds its breath?" the serpent mused, voice low and sardonic.
"Yes," Artorius said. "Either the jungle fears us… or it's preparing to swallow us whole."
Durnoth trudged beside his war mount, his axe already half raised. "Feels wrong, lord. Like the trees are watchin'."
"They are," murmured Vareth, his eyes scanning the treeline, pupils narrowed to slits.
Soon the jungle parted. Steam rose in great rolling curtains from the clearing ahead, where a pyramid of viridian stone loomed like a fossilized hill. Its sides were carved with draconic glyphs, spirals of flame, talons locked in eternal struggle, and feathered serpents ascending toward a stylized sun.
Gryssira hovered overhead with her bow drawn. "I see no guards?"
Indeed there were none. No patrols. No sentries. Only the hum of toxic wind blowing through hollow windows. Artorius's instincts prickled. "Hold position," he ordered. "Shields up. Scouts forward."
The scouts advanced, their captain barking orders as he swept for traps. They found acid flasks embedded in the first steps, primitive mines filled with green bile that would have melted skin and scale. But they were old. The liquid inside had gone inert, the mechanisms rusted.
"She's abandoned this place," Vareth grunted, kicking one aside as he came back to report to him. Artorius climbed the steps slowly, his feet hissing where they met the toxic moss. The doors of the pyramid, a pair of golden slabs shaped like coiled serpents stood slightly ajar.
Inside, the air was thick with alchemical rot. Rows of shattered vials lined the walls. There were stills and cauldrons, cracked alembics, shelves lined with dust where potions once stood.
And in the center of it all knelt a single dragon scales pale green, eyes sunken, armor half-melted by corrosion. Two soldiers held it down as Artorius approached. The dragon lifted its head weakly, hissing through cracked fangs. "Elder-blooded," murmured Ouroboros. "But dying."
Artorius crouched low, meeting its gaze. "Where is Zalroth?"
The creature's throat worked before a rasp escaped. "Gone… fled when she heard the Water Lord fell. Said she would not challenge the one who wields flame and crystal both. She left the jungle to rot."
A low laugh hissed from Ouroboros's coils. "You scared her away. Imagine that, a dragon lady too frightened to fight."
The laughter echoed through the hollow hall, but Artorius didn't share the amusement. His gaze drifted over the melted tools, the abandoned experiments, the scattered runes. Something felt wrong. "No," he said quietly. "This isn't fear. This is preparation."
There was a game afoot here, one he couldn't tell what it was exactly. He had no doubt in his mind that the dragon lady just gave up like that. Dragons respected strength above all else, she would most likely get overthrown or have most of her forces abandon her.
Artorius was silent for a long moment. The mist pulsed through the chamber vents, filling it with green light. "Search every hall," he said finally. "Strip the laboratories, the forges, the treasuries. Anything she left behind is now ours."
Then turning to the lindwurm, he ordered it, "Heal this wounded dragon there may be some uses we have for it."
The looting began at once. But there was little of worth.
Most of the alchemical stores had been burned or eaten by acid. The forges were corroded. The vaults were empty save for a few cracked vials that hissed when opened, releasing clouds of toxic vapor. Even the treasury held nothing more than fragments of melted gold and pearls fused with bone.
When the soldiers emerged hours later, their armor steaming, the disappointment was palpable. "She stripped the place clean," Vareth murmured.
"Its what I thought, let's turn our attention to the dungeon!" Artorius remarked.
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Soon his Host turned deeper into the toxic biome. The Toxic Jungle had no sky only a ceiling of green storms. Days passed in haze and peril. The jungle tested them now that its mistress was gone.
The air itself was heavy, every breath tasting of rust and bitter fruit. Leaves sagged under the weight of acid dew; roots writhed when cut, bleeding oily sap that burned like fire. The soldiers moved in silence through it all, wrapped in protective sheets crafted by their blacksmith.
At times rainstorms of acid fell from green clouds. Lightning that burned blue struck trees and made them explode into shards of poison bark. Rivers bubbled with fumes that blinded scouts and stripped metal. More than one soldier collapsed from exposure, armor smoking.
Still, Artorius pushed them forward. As dangerous as this was, it wasn't as dangerous as it could have been without the assistance of the elder blooded dragon which had been left behind. He learned its name was Vurnath. It seems like he was abandoned when he refused to leave along with the others and got cut down for his troubles. Thanks to his aid of helping them avoid traps and dangerous creatures it wasn't long before they located the dungeon.
Still they ran into many creatures that lived in this biome which they exterminated with extreme prejudice. Thanks to the foes they defeated, Artorius gained a level; Congratulations! You have leveled up. Race: [True-Blood DragonMen] → Lv. 16
They found it days later: a colossal sinkhole surrounded by black stone pillars, each carved with the sigil of serpents. The air above it shimmered with heat, though the rain fell cold. Green vapor rose in slow spirals from the pit's center. A broken inscription ringed the entrance: The Shattered Coil!
Ouroboros hissed in approval. "The dungeon. Ancient, older than Zalroth's reign. I can taste it, alchemical wards, serpentine runes, and something still alive beneath."
Artorius raised his lance. "We descend." He felt it the moment his boots crossed the threshold pressure, like diving underwater, a weight that pressed against his heart. At this point, Artorius was used to the challenges that the dungeons offered as he had been through three already. This was his fourth dungeon. The patterns were familiar now: each was a test, a wound in the world left behind by beings greater than any single dragon.
There were chambers that were a maze of stone and dripping acid. The walls pulsed as though alive, veins glowing green through obsidian. The air was heavy, thick with fumes that made weaker soldiers cough blood. In some they emerged into what seemed at first a jungle within the dungeon filled with bioluminescent flora.
In one chamber, vats of acid bubbled in circles, each one forming a cocoon of crystal. In the center hung a single massive shell; half-open, glowing from within. The air trembled. The acid vats burst one by one, revealing twisted dragon-forms; alchemical abominations fused from bone and feather, half-molten. They shrieked, voices like glass breaking. The battle was chaotic.
Finally they reached the boss, from the shell rose a serpent-dragon longer than any they had seen, its scales a mosaic of jade and emerald, its mane a fringe of feathers that glowed faintly gold. Acid dripped from its fangs like tears. Its wings unfurled, not of membrane but translucent crystal.
[Jade serpent — Level 26]
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The temperature of the chamber dropped as green light began to pulse from the veins in the walls. The dungeon itself stirred, answering the serpent's call. Pools of acid began to bubble, and the air thickened with fumes that burned the lungs.
The creature moved with impossible grace for its size. One blink, and it was upon them, an avalanche of muscle and glimmering stone. Its maw opened, spilling forth the Verdant Breath, a torrent of jade mist that turned the very air into acid. The first wave struck the vanguard, shields sizzling, armor melting to slag. Soldiers screamed, diving aside as the cloud rolled over them like a living storm.
Holding their ground they quickly retaliated, raining down destruction upon it. At this point with hundreds of soldiers backing him and many champions and nobles they were able to quickly bring its health down before it could even do much damage.
Getting desperate the serpent's used a ability in which its body blurred and split into spectral doubles, three, then five, then nine phantom serpents swirling through the chamber. Each mirror-form mirrored the real one perfectly every wingbeat, every hiss. Blades met only air, arrows found no flesh. Confusion rippled through the ranks as illusions and substance danced as one.
Artorius's command cut through the chaos like a bell. "The more the merry, crush them all!"
His heavy infantry locked shields while the cavalry circled outward, their dragons snarling. Above, Gryssira's archers wheeled in tight formations, their bows singing as rune-etched arrows streaked through the haze. His scouts kept jumping in and out, cutting into the giant snake copies.
Getting desperate as they cut down the copies and only its true body was left, the serpent thrashed as it let loose a Featherstorm unleashed a flurry of razor sharp feathers that filled the sky. The air turned into a rain of glass.
Beneath the storm, the ground war devolved into a blur of motion and fire. Durnoth's Ironclads braced against the serpent's tail strikes, their greatshields glowing as acid splashed harmlessly against reinforced plating. Ravok's beast riders drove their mounts through the chaos, using speed to their advantage darting in, striking, and vanishing before the serpent could coil around them.
Every heartbeat was violence. Nonetheless the serpent could not stand against their combined might and closed with a final roar. Best of all he hit it with a final shot and got a wonderful prompt that brought a smile to his face.
You have slain [Jade serpent — Level 26]
Congratulations! You have leveled up. Archetype: [Leader] → Lv. 16
Stat gains: +1 INT, +1 WIL, +1 CHA
Congratulations! You have leveled up. Class: [Storybook Squire] → Lv. 16
Looting its body and chopping up its parts to use later, the main items they found were some class tokens given to his elite soldiers.
Then there were two magic items that stood out, one was a feather that allowed you to make copes of yourself like the serpent did before. He gave that to the lindwurm, he wasn't a fighter and needed every survivability chance he could get also he needed to show the dragon why it was a good decision to follow him on his mad crusade.
The other item was a cauldron which looked to be useful for an alchemist, he gave that to Vurnath, the dragon they found abandoned in the pyramid. It was a gesture to show his appreciation of getting them through the jungle.
Ouroboros slithered from the shadows, his voice half-amused. "Another dungeon conquered, little conqueror. Another myth added to your chain."
Artorius looked at the fading shards, the dying light painting his face green. "And yet," he said quietly, "the serpent remains. What do you think she is up to?"
"Our friend there will know," Ouroboros remarked, pointing at the alchemist dragon.
Nodding his head in agreement, he whispered, "Keep an eye on him," he rose, turning to his commanders. "Gather the fragments. The jungle belongs to us now. We move to face the storm next."
The Host obeyed, moving like ghosts through the fading fumes. Above them, the dungeon's roof cracked open, letting in a sliver of sickly light.
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Before they headed out, they located the trial which laid beyond the Jade Serpent. The path ahead narrowed into a long corridor, a gullet of stone that pulsed faintly with inner light. On its walls, reliefs of coiled serpents twisted endlessly upon themselves—each one carved mid-motion, as though writhing in silent laughter. The air here was heavy with the scent of mercury and ozone.
Coming to a lair filled with dead dragon bones something shimmered, a single, unbroken great scale of translucent jade, curved and perfect. It pulsed faintly like a heartbeat. Artorius reached out and touched the scale. The world inverted. Light and motion swallowed him whole.
He awoke not standing, but floating in a void of green haze and glimmering crystal strands that hung in the air like spider silk. Beneath him, there was no floor, only endless reflections of himself, each moving a fraction too slow, a fraction too fast. The silence was total except for the faint rhythm of a heartbeat that was not his own.
Then came the voice feminine, ancient, fluid. "Speed is not the measure of the swift. The serpent does not run, it flows. Do you hatchling know the rhythm of the world?"
Artorius looked down. Beneath him, the haze began to solidify into a spiral floor of jade and gold, a massive serpentine sigil whose rings began to spin. The inner ring turned clockwise, the outer counter, and the symbols between them shimmered like water.
At the center hung a single jade feather, suspended in air by invisible wind. "Grab it before the song ends." Then the music began.
At first it was faint, a pulse of rhythm, almost like a heartbeat echoed through crystal veins. Then light streaked across the sigil, and the rings began to move faster. Artorius moved, instinct guiding him more than thought. Platforms of light appeared and vanished in time with the rhythm, each step requiring perfect timing to reach the next. If he moved too early, the step dissolved into nothing. Too late, and he fell into the endless mist below.
If there was one thing he was thankful at that moment, then it was the endless dance lessons Ser Ector made him take as he had to pull out all his moves to keep to the beat. He leapt from sigil to sigil as they rose and fell like the undulating spine of a colossal serpent. Trails of acid rain shimmered overhead, freezing mid-fall into glass threads that twisted through the air. The music intensified.
Ghostly figures began to form around him, serpents made of light and memory, their bodies moving in intricate spirals. They encircled him, their motions weaving illusions that tried to draw his eyes and break his rhythm.
He adjusted his pace. Instead of forcing speed, he moved with the current, the dance becoming instinctual, natural. The rings beneath him whirled faster, symbols igniting as he passed. As the final verse of the song reached its crescendo, the Feather rose higher, receding with every heartbeat. He sprinted up a staircase of light forming beneath his feet, each step fading just as his heel left it.
He reached the feather almost within grasp then the music stopped. The world shattered. He found himself standing back to the real world. He stood once more in the shattered chamber of the dungeon, the jade scale still glowing faintly in his hand. Energy coiled through his limbs, subtle but unmistakable his muscles lighter, his reflexes sharper, his thoughts clearer.
[Trial of Swiftness — Completed]
Reward: +3 Dexterity
Ouroboros's head lifted from his shoulder, "How did it go?"
"Not bad," he answered.